


Such Strangeness As Was Mine

by oldamongdreams



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Angry Sex, Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Cheating, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Evolution of a Quartermaster, F/M, Hacking, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Scrabble References, Sexual Content, Smoking, Tattoos, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:46:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldamongdreams/pseuds/oldamongdreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anyone with any sense was at least a little afraid of Q. He wasn’t afraid of ruining your career if you got in his way, or teased him about his age, or even switched the coffee machine to decaf (a criminal offense in Q branch). Beneath his youthful face and rumpled, if technically fashionable, clothing, he had a heart of steel and no reason for sympathy.</p><p>If you were smart, you stayed away, kept your head down, and minded your own business.</p><p>James Bond was not known for making smart decisions.</p><p>Or: The Evolution of a Quartermaster. (In which Q hacks and reads and breaks again and again.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2004- i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens

“Hey, Bee! The new guy moves in today, so try to stick around the house, yeah?” Mark poked his head out of the bathroom door, his brown hair plastered down over one eye.

Benjamin gave him a lazy wave. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be here,” he said, taking a sip of his cooling Earl Grey and making a face. “Get some takeaway while you’re out. I don’t know if new guy can cook and this seems a piss poor time to find out. I doubt Adam will make it back tonight, so don’t bother getting him any.”

Mark gave him a half salute in acknowledgement as he headed out the door, and Benjamin sunk back into his seat with a sigh before turning on the computer. He typed in the address for a website he had belonged to for a month now, swiftly navigating the deceptive log-in screen before accessing the real website and pulling up a black screen. Hacker Republic, the pinnacle of free expression for a new age. Or so the creator liked to claim, anyway.

 _Welcome, ScrabbleMaster,_ the type at the top read, and Ben smirked as he pulled up a message board and began the search for a new job. He wasn’t overly fond of his nickname and generally went by Z when talking to people he was fond of on the website—the letter in scrabble worth the highest number of points. But ScrabbleMaster would do for the moment, until he was well enough known to swap it over completely.

 

The doorbell rang an hour later, pulling Ben back to reality. He ran a hand through his hair, attempting to put it in some kind of order, and typed out a quick goodbye before logging off.

“Are you Tanner?” He asked the man standing outside the door. He was older than Ben had expected, in his twenties at least, and Ben left his foot wedged firmly in the door in case something went wrong and he had to slam the door shut and make a grab for the taser resting in the top desk drawer.

“Yeah, that’s me. Tanner Wilson.” Tanner held out a hand and Benjamin relaxed slightly, pulling the door open and shaking the proffered hand.

“I’m Benjamin. Good to meet you.” He ushered Tanner into the house and locked the door behind him. “So what brings you out here? You seem a bit old for uni.”

Tanner frowned self-consciously at that. “The army’s paying for me to do my last year of residency out here. You look a bit young for uni, yourself.”

Benjamin made a face at him. “You’re going to have to do better than that; I hear that one nearly every other day now. I’m seventeen and started uni last semester. Majoring in computer science and English literature. Mark—he’s the guy you talked to about renting the room—he’s twenty-one and studying maths. Adam lives here sometimes—he’s a med student and a general pain in the arse. You’ll meet him eventually.”

Tanner nodded, but still looked slightly uneasy at the idea of living in a house full of college kids.

Benjamin sighed inwardly and grabbed one of Tanner’s bags. “Come on, I’ll show you the house after we dump these in your room.”

The tour was short, as there was not much to see in the flat. “Mark’s room, bathroom, my room—Adam tends to crash there when he’s here sleeping hours—main room, kitchen. Label your food if you want it to stay there, clean up after yourself, television is first-come first-serve. No visitors during finals week, talk to us first if you’re having a party so we can get the hell out if we need to, touch my computer and I’ll kill you in your sleep. Any questions?”

Tanner still looked a bit bewildered, but shook his head. “I’m on a twelve on, twelve off rotating schedule, so I doubt I’ll be about much. Really I just need a place to crash, and this seems decent enough. It’s clean at least.”

Ben smirked slightly. “I don’t sleep much, and I like things to be clean. Mark’s not much help in that regard, but you can’t have everything I suppose. I think you’ll like it here. Mark’s a decent bloke, if a bit overenthusiastic at times, and I’ve been told I’m not bad to live with. Adam’s a bit of a prick, but he’s got a decent heart, and he’s loyal. I think you’ll do just fine.”

“Yeah, I think I will,” Tanner said with a grin.

 

It was over a week before Adam showed up at midnight, slipping into the house lightly despite the smell of alcohol that clung to him.

Ben looked up from the computer screen he was crouched over and smiled, beckoning him closer. “Where have you been, you bastard?” He muttered, letting out a small gasp as Adam tugged on his hair, tipping his head back to kiss him thoroughly.

“Around,” Adam said casually, kissing Ben again.

Ben pulled back, wrinkling his nose, and smoothed Adam’s shirt down. “You smell awful. Are you too pissed to shower?”

Adam mumbled a response before pulling Ben out of his chair and hooking his fingers in the loops of his jeans, dragging him closer.

Ben let himself fall into the kiss for a moment before shoving Adam away. “Shower,” he said more firmly. “I’ll be here when you get out.”

“No you won’t,” Adam countered, “you’ll be naked in bed, waiting for me.”

Ben shivered at the dark promise in his voice and turned to shut down the computer.

Ben’s room was crowded but clean. The mattress was kicked into a corner beside a wall covered by bookshelves. On the other side of the bed was a desk covered in computer parts and a small chest full of clothes. Ben stripped quickly, folding his clothes and settingy them on top of the chest before scrambling into bed, excitement building in his stomach.

 

When Benjamin woke, Adam was already gone. This wasn’t a surprise. Adam had learned early in the year that Ben didn’t react well to being woken at three in the morning for sex before Adam left for work and classes. Ben appreciated the extra sleep, but there was something about waking up alone in a bed that had been full of a sexy boyfriend when he fell asleep that was mildly depressing.

He pulled on a pair of pyjama pants and a ripped black undershirt before sleepily heading out into the kitchen for some tea.

Tanner was sitting at the table with a paper, eating a sandwich and looking more exhausted than any human ought to.

“Hey, Tanner,” Ben said with a smile, filling the kettle with water and turning on the stove before moving to sit on the stool next to the other man. “Do you have night shifts this week?”

Tanner nodded, covering his yawn with one hand. “It’s bloody awful, but what can I do? I’m hoping to stay up for an hour or so to get some paperwork done and then crashing for eight hours straight.”

“Sounds fun.”

“Your dedication is a lesson to us all, Wilson,” Mark said sleepily as he entered the room, wearing only a low slung pair of pyjama pants. He poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, eyes still half closed.

“So, Bee,” he said a moment later, a smirk appearing at the corner of his mouth, “got some news for us?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mark,” Benjamin said, the denial familiar on his tongue as his mind went automatically to the CIA database he had hacked two days ago.

“Really? Because I just ran into a very familiar face in the bathroom, one that was definitely not here last night.”

“Adam’s still here?” Ben asked with some surprise. “I thought he left for work already.”

“I did. Got back half an hour ago; I don’t have classes until noon.” A warm body plastered itself to Ben’s back as Adam wrapped his arms tightly around his waist. “Hey,” he said to Tanner, “you the new guy?”

Tanner didn’t seem fazed by the overt display of affection, and he nodded. “I am. And you must be Adam.”

Adam unwound himself from Ben to shake Tanner’s hand. “That I am. I’m going to go study, Ben. I’ll be in the room if you need me.” With a wink he strolled out, and Benjamin allowed himself a moment to stare at his arse as he walked away before turning back to Tanner.

“It’s not going to bother you, is it? He’s not here all that much, and we can be discrete if we need to.”

Tanner shrugged and took another sip of his coffee. “It’s fine, really. I have an older sister who came out in high school. I figure, it’s all love, yeah? I’m honestly more put out that I can’t drag you with me when I’m on the pull.”

Benjamin grinned in relief. “I’ll still go with you, if you like. Or you can take Marky-Mark. Though his taste in girls is awful.”

Mark glared at Ben, the effect ruined by the sleep clouding his eyes. “I resent that.”

“Oh? And what about Sarah? Or that girl from the band?”

“You like Sarah! And the girl from the band was really hot and a drummer. It doesn’t get better than that.”

“Sarah is a pyromaniac and quit school to open up a lesbian bar. Somehow, you missed this and were able to convince yourself that she still might be into you. Even _after_ you met her girlfriend. And the drummer did cocaine and ‘accidently’ broke your wrist.”

Tanner choked on his coffee, and Mark glared at Benjamin. “Do you want me to trot out _your_ dating record, Bee?”

Benjamin smirked and picked up his mug. “The difference there, is I can take care of myself.”

Tanner stared between the two of them, a slight smirk on his face. “Why do you call him Bee?” He asked Mark in a curious voice.

Mark grinned. “He snores, and it sounds like buzzing. And I didn’t have anything better to call him.”

“Yeah, and it has nothing to do with the fact that you were drunk off your arse and muttering about wanting to ‘count the bees’ before going to sleep, right?”

Mark spun around and pointed to Ben. “Exactly. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a date with my lovely lady calculus. Don’t bother waiting up.”

Benjamin grinned and let him go.

 

It was nearly a month before their schedules aligned on a night Tanner was off duty and interested in going out.

Mark had picked the club, a shoddy place a few miles away that his new girl liked. “Dress like you mean it,” he had told Ben earlier in the day. “It’s a straight club, but the kind that doesn’t care who you’re fucking. And you’re young and pretty, and it’ll give me and Tanner a shot at all the girls you attract.”

Ben had laughed and rolled his eyes, but agreed. This was something he knew he was good at, and he wasn’t serious enough about Adam to avoid flirting with other people if he didn’t show. He wore black jeans so tight they appeared painted on and a thin white shirt, clunky black boots and a leather jacket. He slicked gel through his hair in an attempt to manage it and applied a thin coat of eyeliner around his eyes, smirking at his reflection in the mirror. He left his glasses on the side of the sink.

Tanner stared at him as he entered the kitchen, and Benjamin grinned in response.

“Damn, Bee.  You clean up good,” Mark said appreciatively as he gave him a once over.

Ben winked at him in response, and Mark pretended to swoon, causing Ben to dissolve into giggles.

“So what are you going to be doing while Wilson and I are on the pull?”

“I dunno. Dance, flirt, maybe seduce someone into a quick shag. The usual.” Ben managed to hold a straight face for a full minute before dissolving into laughter, the grin on his face showing his youth. “I thought I’d bring a book, actually. Hate to ruin your image of me and all, but I’m not really a people person. I just tag along so I can con someone into buying me drinks.”

Within two hours, Mark was drunk and Ben was pleasantly buzzed and immersed in a book of e. e. cummings poetry.

“What’s that?” Tanner leaned over his shoulder, reading the words in front of him. “I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens?”

“It’s for a class,” Ben answered, a blush staining his cheeks. “I’m liking it more than I thought I would.”

“Not a big poetry reader myself. Maybe you can recommend something for me to mention on my date.”

“Oh? You got a girl then?”

“Yeah. That’s her, over there.” Tanner pointed at a girl in a pink dress with pinker lips, a black fedora pulled low over her eyes.

“Well done, you. She’s cute.”

Tanner propped an elbow on the counter and signalled the bartender for another beer. “What about you? Anyone caught your eye? Or are you and Adam exclusive?”

Benjamin shrugged. “I dunno. That’s a conversation we haven’t had yet. I am, though. It’s just the way I function. Half the time I’m too busy to pay attention to one other person, let alone two.”

“And I don’t like to share,” said a possessive voice from behind Ben.

Benjamin turned to face Adam. He was wearing suspenders attached to his jeans and a few gold chains around his neck, but was otherwise shirtless. Ben was drunk enough to allow Adam to pull him into a deep kiss, not caring who was watching.

“Nice to see you, Wilson. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to borrow my boyfriend.” Tanner nodded farewell, a distracted look on his face, and Ben allowed himself to be pulled away. The book of poetry lay forgotten on the bar.


	2. 2004-here is the deepest secret nobody knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As finals approached, Ben withdrew from any jobs he had scheduled and threw himself into his schoolwork. He didn’t need to; he could pass all of his computer classes without even trying and English wasn’t much more difficult, but it felt good to lose himself in words, to disappear into Ulysses and The Iliad until nothing remained of him.
> 
> He wasn’t the only one in a daze. Mark could be found more often than not at the kitchen counter or the coffee shop closest to the house, a mug of coffee at his elbow and a pile of mathematics books in front of him. Tanner was wrapping up his residency and was either at the hospital or sleeping. Adam had cut down from drinking every night to drinking two or three times a week. He spent his nights in Ben’s room, too tired to do more than sleepily kiss the side of his face before drifting off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger warning for dubious consent, abuse in the context of Ben's relationship, and mild BDSM themes.

As finals approached, Ben withdrew from any jobs he had scheduled and threw himself into his schoolwork.  He didn’t need to; he could pass all of his computer classes without even trying and English wasn’t much more difficult, but it felt good to lose himself in words, to disappear into _Ulysses_ and _The Iliad_ until nothing remained of him.

He wasn’t the only one in a daze. Mark could be found more often than not at the kitchen counter or the coffee shop closest to the house, a mug of coffee at his elbow and a pile of mathematics books in front of him. Tanner was wrapping up his residency and was either at the hospital or sleeping. Adam had cut down from drinking every night to drinking two or three times a week. He spent his nights in Ben’s room, too tired to do more than sleepily kiss the side of his face before drifting off.

Benjamin passed all of his exams and went out with Mark to celebrate.

“You’ve got one more year of all this. What are you going to do afterwards?” Ben asked, leaning against the bar that was surprisingly empty for the hour.

“I dunno. Teach, maybe. I’d like to travel, but I don’t know how likely that is. What about you, Bee? You’ve got two years left, maybe less, knowing you. What happens then?”

Ben shrugged one shoulder. “I dunno. I was thinking of maybe pursuing my…extracurricular.”

Mark nodded knowingly. He was the only one of Ben’s friends that knew about the hacking. He had introduced Benjamin to a mutual friend, a member of Hacker Republic, who had vouched for Ben upon joining the website. “I thought you might say that, Bee. It challenges you. You need a challenge.”

Ben nodded thoughtfully, sipping his drink. “How’s the girlfriend?” He said, just for a change of subject.

“Ditched me for a guitarist. Maybe I ought to switch to blokes for a bit. My luck can’t possibly get any worse.”

“You’re cute, in an innocent way” Ben smirked. “Guys will be all over you.”

“Will they?” He looked for a minute as if he were going to say something else, and then he took a deep breath and kissed Benjamin softly.

Ben kissed back for a moment, savouring the taste of cheap beer and peppermint and the underlying taste of boy. Regretfully, he ended the kiss and pulled away.

“Adam?” Mark asked, a knowing look on his face.

“You’re my friend, Marky-Mark. I care about you. But you’re drunk, and you don’t really like blokes, and I’ve got Adam to think about. It would be too much like taking advantage, and you’d hate me in the morning.”

Mark gave him a pointed look. “You’re eighteen, Bee. If anyone should be worried about taking advantage, it’s me.”

“And you’re an innocent, Mark. You’ve only ever dated women, and even if I was willing to take advantage of what you think you’re offering, you’re not my type. You’re a good guy, Mark.”

“And you don’t ever go for the good guys,” Mark finished with a sad smile. “Probably for the best.”

“Probably,” Ben agreed. They tapped their glasses together, and continued to drink in silence.

 

“Where have you been, Benjamin?”

“Out drinking with Mark. We finished exams today, and you weren’t around.” Benjamin dropped his bag on the floor and walked over to Adam, kissing him and clinging to his arms.

Adam reached one hand around and pulled Ben’s head back sharply by his hair. His face looked cold in the dim light of the room, and Ben shivered involuntarily. Adam tugged him down onto the mattress by his hair, pinning his wrists flat before straddling his hips.

“You smell like him,” he growled. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Benjamin closed his eyes. “He was drunk. He kissed me. I didn’t take him up on anything. That’s all.”

“Good,” Adam said simply. He leaned down and kissed Ben possessively, his hands tightening around Ben’s wrists until he could feel the bones rubbing together.

Just when Ben was about to make a muffled protest against Adam’s mouth, Adam released his wrists, moving one hand up to Ben’s hair and the other  down to undo the first button on Ben’s shirt.

“You’re mine, Benjamin,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’ll not have you forgetting that.” He pulled back on Ben’s hair, baring his throat, and bit it, worrying the skin with his teeth.

Ben moaned, arching against the firm grip Adam had on him, and groaned softly. He looped his arms around the man’s back, scraping fingernails against skin and tugging white-blond hair in an effort to drag Adam even closer.

Adam disengaged at the first hint that Ben wanted more, sitting up and striping his shirt off with brutal efficiency. He pulled Benjamin up by his hair before stripping his shirt off as well and removing his glasses before pushing him back down onto the bed.

“Who do you belong to, Benjamin?” He whispered as he nipped at his chest, biting hard enough to leave marks that would last through the morning, fingers digging into soft skin hard enough to bruise.

“You,” Ben whispered, breathless, and Adam met his lips once more.

Adam was long gone by the time Ben rolled out of bed, and Ben slid on a pair of jeans and a shirt that hid the worst of his bruises before going to make a pot of tea.

“Morning, Tanner,” he said casually, stepping gingerly around the counter and putting the kettle on.

“Good morning, Benjamin,” Tanner said in return. He seemed hesitant, and when Ben turned around Tanner was a second too slow in diverting his gaze from the bruises on Ben’s neck.

Ben raised a hand self-consciously, tugging his collar up to hide the bruises there, and smiled sheepishly.

“If you don’t let me indulge my doctor side, I may have to drug your tea in order to examine you.”

Ben flinched and tried to cover it by turning back to the tea and preparing himself a cup. “If you insist, but it’s really nothing for you to worry about.”

“Benjamin, you have bruises in the shape of a hand ringing your neck.”

Ben scowled at him. “For someone who seems to have a new girlfriend every other week, you are disturbingly vanilla.”

Tanner blushed, but insistently tugged Ben’s collar down. He traced one of the bruises softly and frowned. “You know that it’s okay to have limits, right?” He said softly, looking at the bruises and bite marks adorning his skin. “If this isn’t consensual, there are people who can help.”

Ben jerked away as though he had been burned. “I know I’m young, but I’m old enough to know what I do and do not want. I want Adam. I do have limits, and so does he. He doesn’t like to be tied up, I don’t let him strike me with anything other than his hand. I don’t like blindfolds or humiliation. Adam respects that. This? This I am fine with.”

Tanner’s face was bright red, and he moved his hand away from Ben’s neck. “Too much information, mate,” he said with a shake of his head. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask again.”

Benjamin had the decency to blush. “Right. Let’s…let’s just pretend that never happened. So, when do you finish your residency?”

“Two weeks,” Tanner said with a tired smile. “Two weeks and then I ship out for basic training. How about you? When do you leave?”

Ben shrugged. “I’m staying here, actually. I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing better to do. Might take a summer class or something.”

“Oh? What about your parents?” Tanner winced the moment the words were out of his mouth. “Shit. I didn’t mean…don’t feel like you have to answer that.”

Ben shrugged. “Nothing really to tell. They died when I was fifteen. I bounced around the foster care system until I got released for university, and I then I aged out. I don’t have any relatives that I know of, and I have no desire to visit any of the families I lived with.” A shadow crossed Ben’s face, and Tanner mumbled a response, happy to let the conversation die.

 

Tanner left on a Monday, packing up the duffle bag and backpack that contained everything he had brought with him.

“Don’t get yourself killed out there, Wilson,” Mark had said, grinning slightly as he pulled Tanner in for a brief hug.

“Take care of yourself,” Ben said, touching Tanner softly on the shoulder.

“You too, Benjamin,” Tanner said, worry creasing his brow for just a moment before he stepped off the kerb and into the cab.

Mark left that week as well, going home to visit his family in Surrey, and Ben found himself alone in the flat with very little to do. He spent quite a bit of time on Hacker Republic, accepting stupid dares just because he could and relishing the high that came with breaking into places meant to be secure. Despite that, it was less than a week before he was bored and hungry and desperate to get out of the flat.

He found himself at a little bookstore across the street from Sarah’s bar. It had a ‘Now Hiring’ sign in the window, and Benjamin counted it as a stroke of fate.

“Are you really hiring?” He asked the girl behind the counter, a young woman with short brown hair mostly covered by a knitted beanie.

“Name your top three favourite authors,” she replied without looking up from her book.

“Are we talking literary fiction, poetry, science fiction, creative nonfiction, or overall?”

She glanced up at that, her gaze sliding over his black shirt and worn jeans, the wire rimmed glasses that he wore more for show than anything else, and nodded to herself. “I think you’ll do just fine. Do you have any objection to working weekends?”

“No, that’ll be fine.” He could always bring his laptop with him if work was slow, after all.

“Alright then. I’m Maranda. You can start right now, if you like…”

“Benjamin,” he finished for her, shaking her hand firmly.

“Where have you been?” Adam demanded, frowning at Benjamin when he finally made it home that night.

“Got work at a bookstore across from Sarah’s. I said I’d work weekends.”

Adam’s frown deepened. “Fine. Next time you could let me know, so I don’t end up waiting around here.”

“You can hang out here, you know. You _do_ pay a third of the rent.”

Adam wrinkled his nose and didn’t bother replying. “Anyway,” he said a moment later, shaking off his anger more quickly than Benjamin would have thought possible. “I’m glad you’re back. I have been waiting for you for a reason, after all.” His voice is deeper now, and Benjamin falls into it the same way he falls into the kiss that comes a moment later.

 

“Are you okay, Benjamin? You’ve been quiet tonight.”

Ben looked up at Sarah over his third scotch, a denial on the tip of his tongue before he shrugged. “I’m feeling a bit off, honestly.”

They’re sitting in Sarah’s office, nursing drinks while Ben runs over the tax forms for the bar, scanning the numbers for discrepancies.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

_Adam’s lips fierce against his own, undressing him before spreading his legs and tying him into place. Taking a blindfold out of his pocket—just this once, I promise babe, don’t worry, I’ll take it off before anything happens._

“Adam…he…” If there’s anyone who he can tell this to, it’s Sarah. “He invited someone else to play with us last night. Without telling me beforehand.”

_Smooth, unfamiliar fingers tracing his lips around the ball gag. “Such a pretty mouth, can’t see why you gag him at all.”_

_“It’s worth it, trust me. By the time you take it out, he’ll be begging so pretty for it.”_

_Adam’s face, looming over him suddenly as the blindfold is removed. “You’ll do this for me, right? If you say no, I’ll understand.”_

“I mean, I agreed to it, but it was just…”

Sarah nodded slowly, and covered his hand with her own. “You know you can say no to him, right?”

Ben glared at her. “Everyone tells me that. I _know_ I can say no. And you know what? I didn’t. I begged for it.”

_Moaning around Adam’s cock, the soft touch of fingers on his stomach, his hip, his thigh. Whimpering in the hopes that someone would touch him, would give him the release he was blindly seeking._

Sarah still looked unsure, but she poured Benjamin another glass of scotch anyway. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, love.”

“I know,” Ben said quietly. “I just wish that for once, someone would believe that I could look after myself.” _I want someone to believe that I might be the one to do the hurting,_ is what he suddenly and inexplicably wanted to say, but Ben ruthlessly shoved that thought down and took another sip of his scotch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from e. e. cumming's poem "i carry your heart with me."


	3. 2004-2005-in such a silence as i know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wasn’t an addict. Addiction was something that couldn’t be controlled. This Ben had under his control. This was to help him focus, to keep petty things like huger or sleep from distracting him, nothing more. Despite what Sarah thought, it had nothing to do with Adam. The cocaine was for the days where cigarettes and tea were not enough, when the high of hacking didn’t thrill him the way it ought to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger warning: Cheating, application of a taser to a sensitive area, recreational drug usage.  
> Chapter title comes from "it may not always be so" by e. e. cummings.

 

The lights were on when Benjamin made it home from work, and he dropped his backpack on the couch and toed off his shoes. Adam would be in the bedroom. That’s where he usually chose to wait for Ben, reading a book or studying while he waited for company, assuming he was here at all.

He could here faint sounds when he reached the bedroom door, and Ben stopped for a moment as he tried to place them in his mind. A soft whimpering noise, muffled, and the faint slap of skin against skin. Suddenly, Benjamin knew exactly what he was going to find when he entered the room, and he leaned his head against the door and closed his eyes until he felt under control.

He had to face it. He didn’t have to like it, but if he pretended everything was fine without confronting Adam over what he knew was happening in his room, on his bed, he would never forgive himself.

Benjamin took a deep breath and flung the door open.

He had been expecting to see Adam on his knees, fucking a young boy ruthlessly, some sort of twisted punishment for Ben’s continued lateness in coming home from work. He hadn’t expected to open the door to see Adam, eyes shut with bliss, riding another man’s cock and looking pleased about it.

Adam didn’t bottom. That was something Benjamin had learned early on in their relationship; something he had been fine with. Everyone was allowed their preferences, and it wasn’t as though this one interfered with his pleasure in any way.

But there was something about seeing Adam surrendering this side of him, a side Benjamin hadn’t even known existed, that made him furious.

“What the hell, Adam?” His voice was cold, and Adam’s eyes snapped open.

“Ben,” he said simply in response, grinding down with a soft moan.

“Get the fuck out.”

“It’s one third my house too, Ben. How exactly do you plan on making me leave?”

Benjamin felt as though his insides were full of ice, as though if he got any angrier he might actually crack apart at the seams. “I’ll tell you how, Adam. If you don’t get the fuck out of my room right now, I’m going to tase you until your balls cease to function. Then I’m going to drag you outside and lock the door. And then, once you’re out of my life, I’m going to destroy your credit scores, GPA, and give you a record that will ruin any chance you ever have of getting into medical school.”

Adam looked at him with some surprise, and smirked. “So it bites after all,” he said softly. “I was starting to wonder. I’ll make you a counter offer, Benjamin. How about you come down here and I let you fuck me until we’re both too blissed out to fight anymore?”

Benjamin took a step forward and saw the responding smirk flash in Adam’s eyes for a moment before he reached  into his pocket and, in one fluid motion, pulled his taser out and shoved it into Adam’s groin.

 

“Mark?” He said on the phone some time later, after he had thrown out his bedding and set everything Adam owned on the stoop. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to come back early?”

Mark must have heard the subtle hitch in Ben’s voice because he was silent for a long moment. “I’ll be there in four hours.”

He was there in three and a half, and Mark hugged Ben tight and whispered about what a bastard Adam was and how they’d change the locks as soon as possible. They fell asleep curled up together on Mark’s bed, Mark’s hand resting possessively in Ben’s hair, Ben curled up in a little ball under all the blankets.

 

He wasn’t an addict. Addiction was something that couldn’t be controlled. This Ben had under his control. This was to help him focus, to keep petty things like huger or sleep from distracting him, nothing more. Despite what Sarah thought, it had nothing to do with Adam. The cocaine was for the days where cigarettes and tea were not enough, when the high of hacking didn’t thrill him the way it ought to.

It was a habit he had picked up from a friend of Miranda’s, a handsome man in a black jacket who reminded him a bit of Mark. He told himself that’s why he started up a conversation, that it had nothing to do with the glint in his dark eyes or the casual smirk that said he didn’t need to prove himself, but would if you insisted upon it.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Benjamin asked softly, leaning one elbow on the table and looking the man up and down, slipping into the role he had created for himself on a whim.

“Irish Whiskey,” the man said finally, giving Ben an assessing look and nodding to himself. “What’s your name, handsome?”

“Brandon,” Ben replied in a deceptively casual voice. “And you are?”

“David.  Tell me, Brandon, are you even old enough to be out here by yourself?”

“I’m twenty-two,” Ben lied, an easy smile on his face, “and if you think that’s original, I’m afraid you’ll have to try a lot harder.”

David looked at him again, and smiled, baring his teeth in a way that made Ben’s spine tingle. “Maybe I will.”

Ben sucked him off in the back bathroom, relishing the feel of a hand in his hair, someone who didn’t treat him as breakable, someone who wouldn’t complain too much if Ben left bruises on their hips and bite marks on their shoulder.

When it was over and they were both cleaned up, the man— _David,_ Ben had to remind himself—pulled a bag out of his back pocket.

“Least I can do is spare you a hit, if you want one.” He sounded bored already, as though Ben had ceased to be interesting now that he had gotten off. Ben wished that surprised him, but it no longer did.

He knew he should say no, knew all the stories about cocaine and what it did to you. “Yeah, sure,” he said instead, feeling a sudden rush at the thought that this might be the last bad decision he could ever make.

They snorted two lines each, and Ben managed not to sneeze, although barely.

“I’ll be here this time next week,” David said, interest barely evident in his voice as he exited the bathroom, leaving Benjamin to ride out his first high alone.

It was bloody fantastic. Ben wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t the sudden rush of quiet confidence, the lines of code he had been missing suddenly dancing before his eyes. He felt awake and invincible, and he wandered home in a daze, wondering at the sudden brightness of the street lights and the people who were much more interesting now that the drug was in his veins. He locked the door to the flat, turned on the computer, and spent the next twelve hours coding.

The crash wasn’t as awful as he had been expecting, but it was bad enough that Benjamin knew he didn’t want to do it any more than necessary. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that the high would get less satisfying, that he would end up taking more and more just to chase the feeling.

Only when hacking. Only when he absolutely needed it for a job. Only when he needed that last push of brilliance.

 

Benjamin would be the first to admit that he remembered very little of the next term. When the memories came, they came in flashes. _Crouched in front of his computer, typing almost too fast for his brain to keep up. A boy whose name he doesn’t remember with Ben’s cock in his mouth. Blood running down his face as David punches him again, and the wild thought that he’s going to take up boxing if he makes it out of this alive. Waking up with his left side sore and not able to figure out why until he sees the stylised Z now adorning his hip. Standing on a ledge overlooking a river and thinking that this—this might actually be the last stupid mistake he gets to make._

He knew he should ask for help. He also knew that there is a good chance he never would.

Mark found him on his mattress, typing on two laptops at once while his wild eyes flick around the room.

“This needs to stop,” he said simply, resting one hand on the back of Ben’s neck.

“I know.”

Getting clean was a process, but it was easier than he expected. Cigarettes and coffee took the edge off of quitting, and by the time Mark is ready to graduate, Ben feels like himself again.

“What are you going to do?” He asked Mark, perched at the end of the bed as Mark packs up the last of his clothes. The new roommates are in the kitchen, but Ben doesn’t plan on getting to know them. He is leaving as well, though not for another month, moving into a one room flat closer to the university.

Mark frowned at the question. “I don’t know. Teach, I suppose. I’ll be in Surrey, at least for the summer. Then I’m thinking about Edinburgh, if I can find an opening.”

Benjamin wrinkled his nose at that, but let it pass. He helped Mark to carry his bags downstairs, then stopped at the front door. “Bye, Marky-Mark,” he said softly.

 “Bye, Bee. Don’t get yourself into trouble without me here to pull you out.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Benjamin pulled Mark in for a hug and held on tight before releasing him. They promised to keep in touch, and Mark got into the cab. Ben waved once as it pulled away before letting his hand drop with a sigh.

 

“Are you still here, then?” Ben looked at the half-dressed man over his glasses, the majority of his attention on the laptop in front of him.

“I…well, yeah. Should I not be?” The man shifted on the mattress that was shoved off to the corner of the flat, and looked in the direction of the door.

Benjamin took another drag from his cigarette and looked over at the man impassively. “I’m busy, and I doubt I’ll have time for you this morning. If you absolutely must stay, you can, but don’t speak to me or touch anything.”

Under Ben’s gaze, the man dressed hurriedly and exited the flat. Ben stared blankly at the front door for a moment before putting out his cigarette and standing up.

The flat was small, but Ben didn’t need much space. One room with a tiny kitchenette in the corner, his bookshelves, and a desk. A toilet tucked behind a tiny door in the left wall. Room to pace, and to work, and computer parts strewn over every surface. It was perfect.

He felt a flash of guilt on account of the man he had so unceremoniously kicked out of the room, but shrugged it off as best as he could. Everything he had said was true. He didn’t have time for morning sex, and he had no interest in making awkward conversation with the man just because they had shagged. If the world was intent on forcing everyone to either be broken or break others, Benjamin was done letting others break him. And if that meant kicking out one night stands in the morning, speaking more harshly than he had to and not letting himself grow attached, well, there was nothing wrong with that.

_> Z, you still there?<_

The message was blinking on his screen when he turned around, and Benjamin shoved away any thoughts of the morning encounter and sat back down.

_> Still here. What is it?<_

_> You’re near London, right?<_

Ben tapped the side of his laptop with a frown, not entirely sure how he wanted to respond. While he had a close relationship with several other members of Hacker Republic, including Rogue, the person he was talking to now, they were always careful to avoid personal information. Even though each member of the site had been vetted before being allowed to join, the nature of the work they did insisted on a level of paranoia.

_> Why do you want to know?<_

_> Got a job in London in a week. I’m flying down, but I could use some help scouting out the area.<_

_> What would my cut be?<_

_> 500 pounds, more if I turn out to be over my head and need help.<_

Benjamin thought about it for a moment, and then shrugged. He didn’t have much to lose, and it was doubtful that Rogue saw him as enough of a threat to come to London in order to kill him.

_> You’ve got a deal.<_

He arranged a meeting place for them, and lit another cigarette as he closed out of the website and picked up the book sitting on the table, setting down for a night in. 


	4. 2005-it's time you unbecame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue was not what Benjamin was expecting. He had dark hair and the beginnings of a beard and looked to be in his late thirties.
> 
> “Christ, you’re young,” he said upon meeting Benjamin, grinning slightly. “I’m surprised you know how to code at all, let alone the way you do, Z.”
> 
> Benjamin grinned back at him. “Looks can be deceiving, Rogue. You don’t look like the antisocial computer geek I was expecting either. What, do you teach English in your spare time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "now does our world descend..." by e. e. cummings. No trigger warnings for this chapter.

 

Rogue was not what Benjamin was expecting.  He had dark hair and the beginnings of a beard and looked to be in his late thirties.

“Christ, you’re young,” he said upon meeting Benjamin, grinning slightly. “I’m surprised you know how to code at all, let alone the way you do, Z.”

Benjamin grinned back at him. “Looks can be deceiving, Rogue. You don’t look like the antisocial computer geek I was expecting either. What, do you teach English in your spare time?”

Rogue cracked a smile at that. “Imp. Actually, I’m a journalist. Drinks? I can fill you in on what it is we’re doing.”

They found a cramped little bar not too far from the house they were targeting, and Rogue filled Benjamin in on the details. “We’ve got two jobs here. There’s a house that needs to be monitored. Phone calls, computers, bugs in the rooms, everything. And then, if the client deems it necessary, I have to wipe his files from MI6.”

Ben grinned at that. “I haven’t hacked MI6 yet.”

“And you won’t be this time either. That part of the job is solely mine. Sorry, Z. But I want your help on the infiltration and doing the computer bits in the house. I’ve heard you’re good at covering your tracks.”

Benjamin gave a nod to acknowledge that. “I don’t do much on-site work though. Usually it’s remote infiltration.”

“First time for everything, kid,” Rogue said with a grin, signalling for the bartender to bring them each another beer.

“Where are you staying the night?” Ben asked as they left the bar and returned to Rogue’s rental car.

“A little motel out of the city.”

“Do you want to come stay with me instead?” The words were out of his mouth before Benjamin knew he was going to offer them.

“That depends. Are you asking me to stay the night, or ‘stay the night’?”

Benjamin blushed, but raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought you were supposed to be a genius,” he said with an exaggerated sigh.

Rogue stepped closer to Ben and let his eyes slowly travel down his body. “And how do I know you’ll be worth my time?”

Benjamin grinned at that and leaned forward, stretching up on his toes so that his lips were only centimetres from Rogue’s. “I think you’ll find that I can very much be worth your time,” he whispered before leaning forward and pressing his lips to Rogue’s.

The kiss was soft for only a moment before Rogue kissed back, nipping at Ben’s lower lip before sucking it into his mouth. Benjamin pulled Rogue flush against him, teasing at the cupid’s bow on Rogue’s upper lip before sliding his tongue into the man’s mouth.

Rogue pulled away a moment later, his breath slightly uneven. “Right. Your place, then.”

“Nice place you got here,” Rogue said, glancing around Benjamin’s flat. “More like what I was expecting.”

Ben grinned at that. “Yeah, I suppose we tend to have a type. Open spaces and computer parts, somewhere we can do what we do best. Can I get you tea or coffee or anything?”

“No, but that reminds me. I have something for you.” Rogue due through his backpack and extracted a small box, passing it to Benjamin. “You know, since you’re the ScrabbleMaster and all that.”

Benjamin unwrapped the box to find a mug, the letter Q with the number ten written in a subscript in the same style as scrabble tiles.

“They didn’t have a Z one,” he said sheepishly. “But I figure Q and Z are worth the same number of points, so this still makes you the master.”

Ben set it down carefully and grinned at Rogue. “That is fantastic,” he admitted. “Now come here and I’ll properly show my appreciation.”

 

The surveillance part of the job was easier than Benjamin had expected. The man living in the house they were watching worked all day, and his security system was laughable. It was a simple matter of getting in, leaving the bugs and copying his hard drive, then getting out.

They set up their base in Benjamin’s flat, and the next three days consisted of monitoring emails and phone calls interspersed with shagging and talking code.

Benjamin found that, to his surprise, he genuinely enjoyed Rogue’s company. He was intelligent and could keep up with Benjamin’s rambles about coding without skipping a beat. It was nice having someone around to talk to, someone who he didn’t have to worry about carefully shutting out of certain aspects of his life.

“You know, I think you Brits have it easy,” Rogue mused that night, lying flat in the middle of Ben’s bed with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“How’s that?”

“In New York, everyone’s looking for this shit. Substandard hackers are a dime a dozen, and we’re all living practically on top of each other. I’ve been arrested twice, both times under a different fake name. Out here, you’ve got more space. Your neighbours don’t ask nosey questions. You aren’t looking over your shoulder all the goddamned time.”

Ben shrugged, and rolled closer to Rogue. “I guess so. I only know of two or three other hackers in the area. The closest member of the Republic is Trinity, and I haven’t seen him since he vouched for me on the website. It’s nice, you know?”

“Yeah, it is,” Rogue said, rolling over so that he was resting half on top of Benjamin. “Come distract me before I get all morbid and start quoting poetry at you.”

 

“Shit, I’ve got something,” Rogue said around three in the morning. “Do me a favour and trace his internet usage in the last three hours.”

Benjamin nodded and reached for his laptop, effortlessly hacking into the mark’s laptop and searching through his computer. “Damn, that’s clever,” he muttered to himself as he turned the computer so Rogue could see the screen.

“So he has the documents after all. I guess this means I’m going to have to try my hand at hacking MI6.” Rogue grinned at the thought. “This is going to be fun.”

“And you’re still insistent that I can’t help with this part?”

Rogue ruffled one hand through Benjamin’s hair affectionately. “I already know that you’d be able to do it, Z. What I don’t know is if I can do it. I like a challenge and I’m not going to pass this one over, even to you.”

Benjamin pouted, and Rogue laughed. “You’ll get your turn. You’re already better at this than I am. Just let the rest of us have a moment in the sun, kiddo.”

“I’m not a child, Rogue,” Benjamin said in an annoyed voice, and Rogue smiled.

“Oh yeah? Well how about you come over here and show me just how much of a man you are.”

 

Rogue left for the Public Library two days later, with the plan to rent out a study room and do his hacking there, on the off chance that someone caught his signal. “Keep the bed warm for me, Z,” he said with a smile as he walked out the door. “This shouldn’t take more than six hours.”

He didn’t come back that night, or the next. Three days passed before Benjamin broke down and began looking for him. He didn’t have to even go so far as to hack into MI6. The cameras in the library showed Rogue being escorted out, and Scotland Yard’s records showed that they were holding a prisoner in maximum security until he could be extradited to the United States for his trial.

Benjamin sighed and lit a cigarette. They all knew the consequences of getting caught, especially on a job like this one. Twenty years in maximum security, minimum. Most likely he would be there for life. He glumly logged on to Hacker Republic and filled them in on Rogue’s change of status before lighting a cigarette and staring blankly out the window. It was several hours before he managed to fall asleep. 


	5. 2006-2007-the moment pleasantly frightful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paris. Madrid. New York. Pakistan. Greece. After a while, the jobs began to blend together in Ben’s mind, a map made of tangled wires and cables that even he couldn’t trace sometimes. Hacking was different when you weren’t chained to a city, when you shook off the idea of belonging somewhere and traded it for the idea that you could belong everywhere, if that’s what you wanted to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the poem "sometimes I am alive because with" by e. e. cummings. Minor shout out in this chapter to two of my favourite internet people.  
> No trigger warnings for this chapter.

 

Ben graduated with honours, but didn’t bother showing up to the ceremony.  He was in Surrey at the time, fixing his bowtie and trying to calm Mark down.

“Do you think I’m making the right decision, Bee? Honestly?”

Benjamin ran a hand through his hair, trying in vain to flatten it. “Do you love Jen?”

“Yes.”

The force of his reply caused Ben to turn around with a smile on his face. “Then congratulations, mate.” He straightened Mark’s tie and brushed a piece of lint off his shoulder. “She’s a lovely woman.” He paused momentarily. “If you don’t mind my asking, when’s the baby due?”

Mark started. “How did you know?”

“You always did say you weren’t the marrying type. I figured with the wedding on such short notice, there might be something keeping you from dithering.”

“I was planning on it anyway, you know.  This just…hurried things along a bit. The baby’s due in November.”

Benjamin smiled and clasped Mark’s arm tightly. “You’re growing up, Marky-Mark.”

“Strange, isn’t it? Maybe you’ll be next, Bee.”

Benjamin laughed at that. “I doubt it, but I guess we’ll see. Now, should we go give Jen the chance to make an honest man out of you?”

“Benjamin,” Mark called after him. “There’s something else I want you to know.”

“Yeah?”

“If it’s a girl, we’re naming it Kami. But if it’s a boy…I was thinking Benjamin sounds like a fine name for a baby, wouldn’t you say?”

Benjamin’s face lit up, and he hugged Mark briefly. “Come on, mate. Let’s get you married.”

 

Paris. Madrid. New York. Pakistan. Greece. After a while, the jobs began to blend together in Ben’s mind, a map made of tangled wires and cables that even he couldn’t trace sometimes. Hacking was different when you weren’t chained to a city, when you shook off the idea of belonging somewhere and traded it for the idea that you could belong everywhere, if that’s what you wanted to do.

He ran across other hackers occasionally, though not nearly as often as he expected. Computers were reaching everyone, and that meant cybercrime was gaining popularity as well. Most of the hackers out there were less competent, less out there…just less.

The few he had run into who were worth a second glance were all networked. Some invited him to join their gangs. Some even offered to let him lead them. Ben always refused. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that he worked better alone.

In Paris Ben hacked into a security network and spent the next three days hiding from the police.

In Scotland he was arrested for cyber vandalism when he hacked into the mayor’s email account and sent out a mass email lauding the benefits of free speech and was held for three days until he could get Mark to drive up and pay bail.

“You’re going to get into real trouble one day, aren’t you?” Mark sounded resigned, and Ben gave a small smile.

“You know me, Mark. I can’t leave a challenge alone.”

Mark shook his head. “Your life is going to be very difficult, Bee.”

Benjamin grinned at that, and soon they both were laughing.

Ben spent the next three days with Mark and Jen and Kami before heading home to London. The apartment felt empty, and he opened up all the windows and smoked three cigarettes in the cold, reminding himself that just because he missed his best friend did not mean he should invite more people into his life.

That night he went out, got spectacularly drunk, and woke up in an unfamiliar bed. By the time the sun had fully risen, he was back in his kitchen, laptop perched precariously on his knees as he sat on the counter and typed.

 

It had only been a matter of time. Knowing it was coming didn’t stop the trickle of fear that went down Ben’s spine as he heard the firm knock on the door.  He carefully slid the box of computer parts under the sink, put on his glasses, and ruffled his hair.

“Sir, can we speak to you for a moment?”

Benjamin looked over the two officers in his doorway quickly. New Scotland Yard, not MI6, not officials from a foreign government sent to kill him. Well, that was something at least.

Ben answered their questions as best he could, and resolved to start playing poker to work on his lying when they saw through most of what he said. In the end, they sentenced him with two months for cyber terrorism, and Benjamin fought the sudden and irrational urge to beg for mercy because despite the illegal things he’s done, especially the ones they don’t know about, jail is not somewhere he belongs.

_Maybe that was the last stupid decision I’ll ever make,_ he thought to himself as he allowed his hands to be cuffed behind his back again when he was walked to his cell.

Jail wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t as bad as he expected. It took two fistfights before people seemed to get the idea that he wasn’t quite as frail as he looked, and Benjamin was grateful that he had kept up with his boxing and running when traveling.  There wasn’t much he could do for exercise now apart from the hour in the yard and doing push ups in his room, but Benjamin resolved to make the most of it.

Since it seemed unlikely that he would be allowed anywhere near a computer in the next two months, Benjamin focused most of his attention on reading and writing. The word quickly spreads that if you wanted someone to spin you a tale, Benjamin would trade you one for a cigarette or some paper. Benjamin didn’t mind—it was easier to talk at people than to them, and it gave him some credibility without forcing him to resort to less savoury methods.

Benjamin was careful not to give away any information about himself. To his cellmate and anyone else who cared to know, he was Benjamin, a friendly English major who had been caught robbing a Tesco because he needed to pay his rent. They accepted the story, and Ben was careful to avoid anyone who may choose to look closer at him.

 

His flat has been searched in his absence, which Ben supposed he ought to have expected. The flash drives he stashed in a poptart box in his cupboard were all still there, as are most of the parts to the laptop he had been building. One of his computers was confiscated, and he had agreed to have it wiped. None of the others had been touched, and privately Ben suspected that they had been unable to break the password to get into them.

The first place he went was to Sarah’s, where he pulled her into the back office and told her what had happened to him.

“I was so worried about you,” she admitted when he was done. “First you take off for a year and a half to travel, then you disappear immediately after returning. And jail, god.” She shook her head. “How was that?”

“About how you’d expect.”

When he returned home, Benjamin devoted the next three hours to erasing any trace that he had ever been in trouble. He debated taking the next step and erasing his very existence, but he refrained. That was not necessary. Not yet.

The second thing he did was head to a tattoo parlour and get a realistic USB port tattooed on his left shoulder. It was a reminder that as human as he was, there was a part of him that was more machine than not. It was also a reminder that if he let anyone steal his secrets, there was no knowing what would happen to them. There was only one way to prevent that, and that was to not get caught again.  

 

Benjamin figured that the best way to not get caught was to not do anything the law could object to.

_< Crimefighting now. Please send any related jobs you don’t want my way.> _He posted on Hacker Republic, chin in his hands as he smoked his first cigarette of the day.

_< Evil not a challenging puzzle anymore, ScrabbleMaster?>_

_< Good is harder. They have rules. And if you can play by the rules and still win, isn’t that a greater challenge than cheating the system?>_

_< Whatever, Z.>_

It was more challenging. Not challenging enough, not like hacking into the CIA in the middle of the night with no more of a goal than to change the spelling of colour to the ‘real’ spelling, but it seemed as though it might be enough.  

Benjamin dedicated himself to finding the ‘bad guys’ and dropping anonymous tips in Scotland Yard’s inbox. He sent the CIA messages on how to improve their security. He did freelance work for people wanting system upgrades and taught coding to a few promising computer science students.

It wasn’t enough. It was challenging, but the rush was gone. Benjamin pushed himself further to make up for it, working in low light until early in the morning, sleeping three hours at a time or not at all. He swapped his wire glasses that he had previously only needed while reading for plastic frames that he needed all the time.

 

It took three months before Benjamin hacked the Bank of London on a whim, the rush coming back full-force.

_< No longer crimefighting. If you have anything exciting that you don’t want, send it my way.>_

_< Good to have you back, ScrabbleMaster.>_


	6. 2008-an inch of nothing for your soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benjamin work in a cold room with his hands cuffed behind his back. He groaned softly and rolled to the side, letting his eyes drift open slowly. The room was completely empty. There were no windows, and the door was solidly built into the wall with no loose pieces that he could see. After a bit of struggling Ben managed to stand up, and leaned against the wall in an effort to keep his balance.
> 
> “Hello?” He called in the loudest voice he could muster. “I don’t know who you are or what you want with me, but I’m assuming you nicked me off the tube for a reason.” Real irritation crept into his voice at that; he had made a date with a friend from the bookstore he frequented and had turned the stove on before he went out.
> 
> It was several minutes, or perhaps hours, before the door opened and two men entered, identical looks of boredom on their faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!  
> Trigger Warnings for torture, canon-typical violence, and general unpleasantness.   
> Title comes from e. e. cummings' poem, "if i should sleep with a lady called death."

 

Benjamin work in a cold room with his hands cuffed behind his back. He groaned softly and rolled to the side, letting his eyes drift open slowly. The room was completely empty. There were no windows, and the door was solidly built into the wall with no loose pieces that he could see. After a bit of struggling Ben managed to stand up, and leaned against the wall in an effort to keep his balance.

“Hello?” He called in the loudest voice he could muster. “I don’t know who you are or what you want with me, but I’m assuming you nicked me off the tube for a reason.” Real irritation crept into his voice at that; he had made a date with a friend from the bookstore he frequented and had turned the stove on before he went out.

It was several minutes, or perhaps hours, before the door opened and two men entered, identical looks of boredom on their faces.

Ben stood up straight and smirked at them. “Take me to your leader,” he intoned, giving the closer one a challenging look. A fist swung toward his face and Ben tried to flinch away, but there was nowhere to go.

When he woke again, he was tied to a chair. “Is it really necessary to keep knocking me out?” He muttered, subtly testing his bonds and finding them too tight to wriggle out of.

“You’re a mouthy one, aren’t you?”

Ben turned his head as much as possible to try to get a glimpse of the man behind him. “So I’ve been told. And you are?”

“Mikael Salvidor.” The man walked around the chair so that he was standing in front of Ben, arms crossed across his chest. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already?”

“Oh, for the love of…really? When I turned down your job, that meant I didn’t fucking want to do it. It wasn’t an open invitation to try and persuade me.”

Mikael smiled benignly, then smacked Ben hard across the face. “If I were you, I would consider your tone. I need this job done, and you’re going to do it for me.”

“Why can’t you get someone else to do it? There are plenty of other hackers who would be happy for the work.”

Mikael leaned forward and met Benjamin’s eyes. “This is not a job I trust just anyone with. You are the best, and I want you.”

Ben couldn’t argue with that. He was the best, after all. “I’m not going to hack MI6 for you. I know my limits, and that’s not one I want to chance when I’ve got a metaphorical gun to my head. It would be nice if you would accept that and let me go, but since I suspect you aren’t going to do that, can you at least send someone to my flat to turn off the stove?”

Mikael smiled pityingly at Ben before slapping his across the face once more.

 

It boiled down to this: Mikael wanted Benjamin to erase his records from MI6. Benjamin didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison when MI6 inevitably caught him. Mikael was willing to use every resource at his disposal to change Benjamin’s mind.

_Tied down, trying to struggle away from the blade on his back, unable to see anything._

_“This is why MI6 sees me as the bad guy, Benjamin. I don’t have the limits they do. Take the job.”_

_“No.”_

_The blade dug in a little deeper, running down parallel to his spine from his shoulder blade to his waist._

_The blindfold still tight over his eyes as his head is submerged over and over, until Ben doesn’t know if he is breathing water or air._

_“Please, don’t hurt me, please, I’ll do anything else, I can get you money. I can get you into any other government. Anything, just not this, they’ll catch me and kill me and give me a traitor’s burial, please.”_

_“And what makes you think that we won’t do that anyway, Z?”_

_They leave him alone then, alone with the pain and the darkness and his hands cuffed behind him so that he can’t even remove the blindfold. He cries, and screams, and pleads, but no one answers._

It was the branding iron that broke him in the end, the smell of burning flash as the metal seared into his skin in the shape of an M. He screamed until his voice was gone, and continued to scream into his mind until late into the night.

The next morning, Benjamin looked up at Mikael with dead eyes and told him he’d take the job.  As worried as he was about what would happen when MI6 caught him, it couldn’t be worse than this.

_Get in, wipe the records, get out._ Ben’s palms had been carefully bandaged, and he typed quickly on the computer that had been brought from his flat. Even through his fear and the muddled pain that hadn’t quite gone away when they injected him with something to let him focus, Ben couldn’t help but enjoy this part, manipulating code under his fingers as he did what he did best.

“Erasing the files…” he muttered out loud for the benefit of the man currently holding a gun to his head. “And done. Now to cover my tracks…”

He made it past the first two firewalls without any problem, but that just meant he was overconfident by the time he tripped a security protocol he really ought to have seen coming.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.” His fingers were flying ahead of his mind now, but it was too late. By the time he was fully out of the system, Ben had resigned himself to the idea that they will probably find him within the next week. The false trails he left were good, but he doubts they’ll be enough.

Mikael blindfolded and cuffed him again; took Ben two streets away from his flat before shoving him out of the unmarked car.

Benjamin climbed the stairs to his flat, his bones creaking. He stripped and showered, silent tears streaming down his face as the water hit the marks on his back and buttocks, washing blood and dirt down the drain. He didn’t bother dressing, and though he knew he ought to bandage his back Ben could not bring himself to do more than collapse breathlessly on the bed and hope that if MI6 came for him in the night they wouldn’t bother to wake him up before shooting him.

They didn’t come that night, or the next. Benjamin relayed information on what had happened to his contacts on Hacker Republic. They threatened to give Mikael the worst viruses that could come up with, but it was clear that they all thought Ben was facing another stint in jail, if not worse.

_< Is there anything you want us to do if you don’t come back?>_

_< Avenge your ScrabbleMaster> _Ben typed teasingly, half to lighten the mood and half in seriousness.

_< We’ll come up with a Z-virus just for you. It’ll be worth ten points and everything.>_

_< I don’t think there’s a point system for viruses.>_

_< Well, there ought to be.>_

The conversation deteriorated into bickering, and Benjamin fell asleep with a smile on his face. 


	7. 2008-2010-my wonderful jealousy is dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benjamin woke up in a cold room, feet chained to the wall. He was still wearing nothing but his boxers, but his back had been bandaged.
> 
> “Well, shit,” he muttered to himself.
> 
> “That’s probably an apt descriptor of your situation, Mr Vougen.”
> 
> Benjamin turned to face the voice and caught sight of a woman in the corner, her mouth in a flat line. She had white hair cropped close to her head, and somehow he found her more intimidating than the faceless agent he had been imagining putting a bullet in his head.
> 
> “I’m sure you can imagine why you’re here, Mr Vougen.”
> 
> “I probably can, but I would appreciate it if you could clarify it for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from the e. e. cummings poem "(supposing i dreamed this)..."  
> Trigger warnings: plane crash, M being M

 

Benjamin woke up in a cold room, feet chained to the wall. He was still wearing nothing but his boxers, but his back had been bandaged.

“Well, shit,” he muttered to himself.

“That’s probably an apt descriptor of your situation, Mr Vougen.”

Benjamin turned to face the voice and caught sight of a woman in the corner, her mouth in a flat line. She had white hair cropped close to her head, and somehow he found her more intimidating than the faceless agent he had been imagining putting a bullet in his head.

“I’m sure you can imagine why you’re here, Mr Vougen.”

“I probably can, but I would appreciate it if you could clarify it for me.”

“Three days ago someone hacked into our network and tripped one of Q’s security measures. Some important files were deleted, and others were altered. Now, it took some time to track the signal to a computer abandoned in a warehouse outside of London. It took some more time to analyse what remained of the machine, but eventually it led us to you. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“If you’re going to shoot me, can you just get it over with?” Benjamin thought he could take getting shot. He could take going to jail if he had to; it was the waiting and the blank look on the woman’s face that were slowly destroying his nerves.

“Oh, I’m not going to shoot you, Benjamin. That would be too simple, and a waste of your talent. I’m going to offer you a choice, if you’re interested.”

Benjamin stared at her in silence, not willing to beg for a second chance or to not be sent to jail again.

“You can either go to jail for the rest of your life, or you can come work for MI6. You’d have to give up information on what it is you took from us, of course, and you’d have to give up your previous identity. You’d be working in the Technical Service Station under our Quartermaster.”

Benjamin stared at her in silence, running through the words he’d heard her say. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, “but did you just offer me a job?”

“Yes. Yes, I do believe I did.”

“And what would happen if I did not accept that offer?”

The woman’s eyes hardened even further. “You’d be left in here for the night. Tomorrow we would do our best to get any information we need out of you, using whatever means necessary. Then when we were done with you, you’d be taken to a maximum security prison, charged with treason. We would do absolutely nothing to get you priority placement.” Here the woman paused and smiled at him coldly. “You’re a lovely boy, Mr Vougen, and quite young too. I don’t think prison would be kind to you.”

Benjamin shivered, knowing exactly what she was implying. “With such an illustrious choice, how could I refuse your job offer?” He asked in a dry voice.

“Then I have a few conditions for you. You are going to move into a flat we’ve chosen for you. You will be at work when we tell you to, and you will go home when I tell you to. You’re on probation for a year. If you’re good, we’ll keep you. If you’re not, we will terminate you. You will have to pass physical and psychological examinations before you can begin work, as well as tell me under what circumstances you were caught hacking our servers.”

Benjamin thought it over for just a moment, and slowly stuck out a hand. “It’s a deal. Or it will be, as soon as you tell me who you are and if you actually have the ability to make deals with people you’ve captured.”

“You can call me M. I’m the director of MI6.”

 

Benjamin gave up the information on Mikael easily. He owed the man no loyalty, and though he did not know what precisely was in the documents he had deleted, he could describe their location and content in general terms.

The physical evaluations were more difficult, if only in that it forced Benjamin to realize that he really ought to take up boxing again if he wanted any chance of being able to defend himself in the future. They asked lots of probing questions about his tattoos, fussed over the scabs and marks on his back, and one of the inspectors actually gasped when he lowered his pants to reveal the brand Mikael had left.

The psychological exam was par for the course, and despite his desire to quote horror movies for his answers, Benjamin replied mostly honestly and kept his thoughts to himself.

He met with M in her office, dressed in real clothes that he had been given to wear until he was allowed to leave.

“You passed your evaluations,” she said in a clipped voice, looking down at the paperwork on her desk rather than at Q. “You start work tomorrow. Bill Tanner will take you back to your flat and pick you up in the morning. Don’t be late.”

 

The TSS, which Benjamin had been told was informally referred to as Q-Branch, was about what Benjamin had expected: a bunch of computer nerds locked in a basement with more tech than he had known existed in one place.

“Benjamin, this is Q. You work for him now,” Tanner said casually before leaving Ben in the room and turning away.

Q was brilliant. He was an older man with greying hair and a white lab coat fastened over his suit.

“Welcome to Q-Branch, Benjamin. Let me show you around.” And with those words, any remnants of the life he had previously lived were stripped away.

 

They started Benjamin out small, as he had imagined they would. He had no security clearance, and was given only the most harmless pieces of technology to play with. The idea was that if he could behave himself for six months, they would bump up his clearance. If he could stay out of trouble for a year and prove worth keeping, they would give him real work.

Benjamin played along, more because he had no choice in the matter than because he wanted to. Just because they had taken away his ability to cause damage did not mean he had forgotten that he was dangerous—dangerous enough for MI6 to want to keep him close.

They wouldn’t keep him if they could get away with not having him, of that he was sure of. This was an extreme version of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, and if Benjamin did not prove he was worth it he would be spending the rest of his life in jail.

So Benjamin behaved himself, at least on the surface. He played by their rules, showed up to work every day, and didn’t touch anything he wasn’t supposed to touch. When he got the irresistible urge to hack something, he stuck to far off governments that weren’t on any sort of MI6 watch list, and he never dug too deep.

He took up boxing again, because despite the amount of time he spent at the office every day, Tanner always made sure he was home by seven. He took boxing, occasionally went out to a bar in search or someone to fuck him, and visited bookstores and libraries in an attempt to loose himself in other worlds. But he was always at the door, ready for work when Tanner picked him up in the morning.

The flat he lived in was in a complex that housed only lower level MI6 employees. Benjamin knew he was there solely so that M and Tanner could have someone watch over him and record his movements. He never hid where he was going, and he answered whenever someone inevitably asked. He didn’t have friends over. He didn’t have friends, period.

After six months, Benjamin was given a thumb drive.

“You are to read this, devise a counter strike that can be carried out without an agent on the scene, and give it to R,” Q told him as they walked through the lab on the way to Ben’s desk. “And boy?”

Benjamin looked over at him, still idly flipping the thumb drive between his fingers.

“I have absolute confidence in your ability to carry this out.”

Benjamin did as he was told.

“Fifteen people died from your actions,” the Quartermaster said softly later, setting a mug of tea on the corner of Ben’s desk. “Is that going to bother you?”

Benjamin thought about it for a moment, and then answered honestly. “No.”

“Good.” The man squeezed him on the shoulder before walking away.

 

The work grew increasingly interesting, and occasionally even challenging from that point forward. Slowly, he began to lose his tails. Tanner went from following him around every day to checking in on him once a week, then once a month. People stopped asking where he was going when he was going out, and slowly, Ben began to feel at home in MI6. The feeling scared him more than he dared admit.

Four months later, the former R was promoted to the head of Research and Development, and Benjamin was promoted to his position.

The first thing he did was go to the nearest tattoo parlour and sit for a new design. He got it on his spine, a small line of ones and zeros that spelled out “courage never to submit or yield” traveling down his back. Surrounding the numbers were a tangle of wires, some stripped at the end, some still attached to whatever they had been in the first place, all plugging into a small stylised power strip at the base of his spine.

He stood on his balcony that night, shirt off and bandages carefully covering his back, and resigned himself to a life sitting at a desk, jailed just as surely as if he had refused M’s offer.  

 

Working as R was very different than working as Benjamin. His projects were bigger, he had more leeway with work times and inventions, and the only person looking over his shoulder was the Quartermaster.

That, Benjamin thought, was the biggest difference. Q was a presence, enthusiastic over the smallest of inventions. He spent hours locked up in the R & D labs, testing new inventions and often dragging Ben with him. It made the job he hadn’t wanted in the first place more bearable, and it wasn’t long before everyone began to see R as just an extension of Q, following him everywhere, their heads bent together as they exchanged coding secrets and ideas for inventions.

It was Q who bought Benjamin his first cardigan.

“R, come here,” he demanded one morning as he walked past Ben’s desk. “I have something for you.”

Q led the way to the back room where several cots were shoved against a wall and two sheets were hung to create a makeshift changing area. Of all the branches in MI6, Q-Branch held the record for most logged hours of overtime. If you put thirty-odd computer geeks in a room filled with technology, they tended to forget there was anywhere else they needed to be until they collapsed from exhaustion. Hence, the cots.

Q shoved a bundle of clothes at R. “Here, put these on. You’re the second most talented person in this department, and I won’t have you constantly looking like you got separated from your school’s tour group.”

Ben looked down at his rumpled white button down and grey slacks and made a face before taking the bundle of clothing and changing. He emerged dressed neatly in a brown cardigan over a freshly ironed white shirt. The tie around his neck felt like a noose, but the fabric enclosing him was smooth against his skin.

“Better,” Q said, turning Benjamin to face a short mirror hanging on the wall. He looked professional, but not overly so. He didn’t look dangerous, not without his eyeliner and skinny jeans and fierce don’t-fuck-with-me expression, but Benjamin found that he didn’t mind. MI6 seemed like a place where it might be good to let people forget where he came from; where it might be good to be underestimated.

They let Q move flats the same week he was assigned to work with his first double-oh. He moved closer to headquarters, close enough that he could walk to and from work or take the tube now that he would no longer be able to bum rides from his co-workers. He spent the entire weekend creating and arming a complex security system that would keep out anyone he chose. Despite the sudden freedom, Ben couldn’t help but fear that M would decide he had outlived his uselessness and was no longer pulling his weight and eliminate him. He slept with a knife under his pillow, his eyes shut tight against the nightmares.

Benjamin was assigned to work with 003 during the extent of her mission in Japan. He was to fly over there with her, do some on-site hacking while she killed the mark and retrieved his hard drive, and then fly back to MI6. The actual mission went much as it was supposed to go. 003 was professional and polite toward him, treating him much as she did the Quartermaster when on missions. The hacking was simple, and the retrieval of the mark went off without a hitch.

It was on the plane back home that things went wrong.

Benjamin estimated that they were over Germany, or perhaps France, when the plane went down. One shot from the cockpit and a horrified shout had 003 unbuckling her seatbelt and moving to the front of the plane.

“Stay here,” she told Benjamin firmly, and he nodded in agreement. That is the last thing he remembered before the patch of darkness that coats his brain.

When he came to, Benjamin was trapped between his seat and the side of the plane, twisted in such a position that made it impossible for him to get out. 003’s body was to his left, her hair matted with blood. Benjamin shouted, but no one responded.

It was an hour before he gave in to the frantic screams and cries of someone who knows that he is damned that had been building in his throat. It is nearly a day before someone hacks through the side of the plane and pulls his nearly-unconscious body from the wreckage.

Benjamin spent the next three days in medical. When they finally let him leave he immediately headed to Q-Branch, doing his best to ignore the way his entire body ached.

“Good to see you, R,” the Quartermaster said, gripping Ben’s shoulder loosely. “I didn’t expect you to be in today. I’m all for throwing oneself into the work, but surely you would rather be home right now?”

Benjamin paused for a moment. Would he rather be home? The answer was no. His flat wasn’t home to him, nor had his last flat been home. The bars he frequented, the library, the boxing studio…none of them felt like home to him in the way that Q-Branch did. The revelation startled him, and he covered it by smiling at Q.

“Wouldn’t want that pile of paperwork to amass on my desk, would I?”

Q smiled at him. “That’s the spirit, R. If you’re feeling up to it, there are some blueprints I would like to take a look at…”


	8. 2011-2012-the aim of waking is to dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The days began to blur together, and Benjamin found himself spending more time in the Technical Service Station each week. He loved the work, the ever present challenge, and it was beginning to show. No longer did people stare at him with the suspicion of those who knew they had an enemy in their midst. No longer did Benjamin feel as though he were an enemy, coerced into working for a government he cared nothing for.
> 
> He was taking that week’s paperwork to M for her to sign off on, a task which he hated due to the scrutinizing gazes that seemed to pierce his soul, the first time he met her.
> 
> “Are you here to see M?” The woman looked up at him with bored eyes from where she was standing outside the office door.
> 
> “Yes, I am. And you are?”
> 
> “Moneypenny, Eve Moneypenny. I’m assisting Gareth Mallory through the transition.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the e. e. cummings poem "in time of daffodils".  
> No trigger warnings.

 

The days began to blur together, and Benjamin found himself spending more time in the Technical Service Station each week. He loved the work, the ever present challenge, and it was beginning to show. No longer did people stare at him with the suspicion of those who knew they had an enemy in their midst. No longer did Benjamin feel as though he were an enemy, coerced into working for a government he cared nothing for.

He was taking that week’s paperwork to M for her to sign off on, a task which he hated due to the scrutinizing gazes that seemed to pierce his soul, the first time he met Moneypenny.

“Are you here to see M?” The woman looked up at him with bored eyes from where she was standing outside the office door.

“Yes, I am. And you are?”

“Moneypenny, Eve Moneypenny. I’m assisting Gareth Mallory through the transition.” Her voice was suddenly defensive, and Benjamin frowned in concentration as he tried to place her.

“Oh, I know you!” He exclaimed suddenly. “You’re the one who…” he bit down on the words before they could come out. Despite the alarming frequency with which rumour said agent 007 had supposedly died, the agency had been shocked by the accidental death of a Double-Oh at the hands of a friendly. He didn’t think Ms Moneypenny would appreciate him bringing it up.

Eve’s face went hard, and Ben could read a history of death in her eyes, eyes that were the only thing all field agents seemed to have in common. She rapped once on M’s door. “R to see you, sir,” she said swiftly.

“Send him in,” M said, and Benjamin did his best to avoid eye contact with Ms Moneypenny as he walked through the door.

 

Moneypenny was still at outside M’s office when Benjamin exited, and he stopped hesitantly in front of her. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said bluntly. “I’ve heard great things about you in the field, and I wouldn’t want to minimize that.”

Eve looked up at him and nodded, lips pursed.

“Can I buy you dinner or a drink to make it up to you? Just as colleagues, nothing more. It would be nice to have someone I could actually gossip about MI6 affairs with.”

“Fine,” Eve said calmly, “but I’m choosing the place, and I’m driving.”

Benjamin winced internally, having seen footage of her driving, but nodded. “Alright. I’ll be in Q-Branch when you get off.” He smiled at her, then turned his mind back to work.

 

The restaurant Moneypenny chose was classy and small, with servers who looked as though they might be carrying discrete weaponry under their livery.

“So, R,” Moneypenny said after a few minutes of observing Benjamin over a glass of red wine, “how did MI6 catch hold of you?”

“What makes you think I wasn’t recruited in the usual way?” Benjamin took a sip of wine and tried to meet her eyes levelly.

“First, because you’re too young to be in such a prominent position if M didn’t have proof of your experience and fear that you will be too easily bored. Secondly, because you’re a crap liar.”

“I did freelance work before,” Benjamin admitted with a shrug that was just a tad too casual. “MI6 caught me and offered me a choice between a job and a stint in jail. I chose the job, and have been working for Q-Branch ever since. And you?”

Eve smiled coyly and took another sip of her wine. “That would be telling.”

They talked work for a few moments before moving on to other, more interesting topics. It was dessert when Benjamin discovered that they had a similar taste in movies, despite his rarely getting the chance to watch them, and he waved his fork in the air while discussing an idea from a gadget that had been born from watching the new series of _Doctor Who._

“I can’t believe you haven’t seen _Torchwood_ ,” he admonished Eve, pointing a bite of his tiramisu at her. “You’ll have to come over and watch it sometime, though we’d have to use a laptop. I don’t actually own a telly.”

Eve looked at him for a moment and then burst out laughing.

“What is it?”

“You. You’re just…I don’t even know what to do with you.”

Benjamin shrugged one shoulder. “Not many people do.”

“Well, if you’d prefer you can come over to my place and watch _Torchwood._ ” One of Eve’s feet pressed deliberately against Ben’s leg under the table, and he froze.

“I’d like that,” he said cautiously, “but…um…you do realise this isn’t my way of coming on to you, right? I do actually know how to flirt if I so choose.”

“Oh?” Eve practically purred. “Would you care to demonstrate that for me?”

Benjamin folded one leg over the other so that it was no longer touching her foot. “No offense, Ms Moneypenny, but you’re not really my type.”

“And why would that be?”

“Wrong genitalia, for one,” Benjamin said with a wry smile.

“Ah.” Eve gave him a smile that seemed more honest than the seductive one she had been sporting a moment before. “In that case, please excuse my behaviour. It was worth a shot.”

Benjamin laughed at that, and Eve soon joined him.

 

Q was in the basement, in one of the R & D labs, when the explosion happened. He didn’t even notice until the firemen started banging on the door, ordering him to evacuate.

He found M outside, standing surrounded by agents and bodyguards. She met his eyes, and the sorrow there confirmed what he already expected.

“Quartermaster,” she said, her voice cutting through the babble surrounding them. “Tend to your department.”

Benjamin— _no, Q now, Benjamin has been dead some time now_ —met her eyes and nodded. “Yes, sir,” he replied, resisting the urge to snap a salute as he turned his back and went to take stock of what remained of the staff of Q-Branch.

 

MI6 agents and department heads were not supposed to attend the funerals of their fallen comrades. It was a security risk to have so many important people in one place, and, after the explosion, M didn’t want to take any chances.

Q attended his Quartermaster’s ceremony anyway.

It was a quiet affair for an old man who had no living family and few friends outside of MI6. When it was over, Q brushed two fingers against the tombstone. “I’ll take care of them for you,” he whispered. “Whatever it takes.”

 

It was strange to be Q. In some ways, he felt like it was where he belonged. At the top of the ladder as he had very nearly been in the hacking world, getting the best projects and doing the most complex coding. There was no one looking over his shoulder and if he had half a wish to bring MI6 crashing down around his ears he could have.

Of course, this was something he hadn’t wished in years, not since his early days working as Benjamin in a desk in a corner with Tanner peering over his shoulder every five minutes. Q was sure that this was M’s master plan, to assimilate him into thinking that MI6 was the best home he had ever belonged to before putting him in a position of power.

Q briefly considered getting the letter Q tattooed over his heart in the same style as the Z on his hip before deciding that his days of marking promises on his skin may be over. It was this more than the responsibility of the new job that made Q wonder if he was finally begining to grow up.

Despite his age, his co-workers accepted his new position with a limited number of comments on his age or inexperience. Q made sure that those who did make such comments found themselves hitting every red light on the way home before getting stuck in the lift for hours on end. The comments stopped fairly quickly after that. He brought his Q mug to work with him on the second week of the job and left it on his desk, a quiet reminder that despite his position on the side of the ‘good guys’, he would always be forced to make difficult and painful choices.

Benjamin was done getting blood on his hands. Q had only begun to bathe in it.

 

“I can’t believe they put you in the basement,” Moneypenny commented idly as she passed a stack of paperwork off to Q.

“We’re the computer nerds, Moneypenny. We’re used to being stuck in dark corners and ignored. Besides, this gives us a chance to try out the new electric probes on the rats instead of on unwitting agents.” Q took a sip of his tea and then held his mug in the air. “Tea, please,” he called, and one of the members of Q-Branch came and whisked it away.

“Didn’t M send you a notice about the ethics of testing things on the double-ohs? And don’t your techies have better things to do than get you tea?”

Q grinned at her, his eyes sparkling in a way that would have made Eve shiver had she not been a former field agent. “She may have done. And what’s the point in having minions if you can’t get some use out of them?” He nodded at the girl who had returned his mug before turning back to Moneypenny. “Besides, if I phrase it right, most of the Double-Ohs are more than willing to test equipment for me.”

“You’re not sleeping with the Double-Ohs, are you? Because that means a hell of a lot of paperwork for me, which means I’m forcing you to sit through _Downton Abbey_ next time you come over.”

Q made a face. “I’m not sleeping with the Double-Ohs. Though I will admit that some of them were more than a bit put out to see that the…equipment…I wanted them to handle was not attached to their Quartermaster.” He smirked, and Eve groaned.

“You are a menace. I don’t know what M was thinking when she promoted you and then left you to your own devices down here.”

“Probably that if she gave the position to anyone else I would have had them deposed within a week.” Q said with a shrug, turning back his computer.

Eve rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. I’ll leave you to your basement and your rats.”

“You know what they say, Moneypenny,” Q called after her. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!”

Eve seemed reminded of something and stopped by the stairs. “Did you hear the latest?”

Q cocked his head and looked at her.

“Bond is back,” she said simply, and disappeared up the stairs.

 

Q had intended to meet Bond in the TSS, originally. When he didn’t show up, Q resorted to rerouting the traffic, eventually trapping Bond at the National Gallery. He couldn’t resist taking a moment to talk to Bond about the painting they were in front of, blathering something inane about the inevitability of time. They traded snarky comments, and Q found himself enjoying the man’s company more than he expected.

“007,” he called, then paused. He wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase what he wanted to say. _You’re a bastard, but an intriguing bastard? How opposed would you be to fucking me up against a wall? If you get yourself killed again, I’m not letting you run from us._ In the end he settles for a half smile and a “try to bring the equipment back in one piece.”

And then Silva happened, and Q remembered the rush of doing something slightly illegal as he followed Bond’s instructions rather than M’s. Q is so sure that he can beat Silva that he began to analyse the laptop before he has explicit permission.

He failed. It hurt him to admit it, but that’s what happened. Silva outsmarted him, and they all paid for it.

He attended M’s funeral as well, as did Bond. They do not speak, but Bond gave him the weary nod of someone who has seen too many people die, and Q didn’t have the heart to berate him about his loss of equipment or anything else.

There would be another day for all that.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that I referred to M as sir rather than ma'am. If you follow me on tumblr, you have likely seen my rants on the use of 'sir' as a gendered pronoun. To me M is and always will be a sir, and I trust that the people who work with her feel the same.


	9. 2012-2013- here's to opening and upward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q knew that MI6 accepted him as one of the good guys mostly because the alternative was too frightening to contemplate. He was essential, and no one liked to dwell on the fact that, if he so chose, he could take down the entire British government before taking his tea. 
> 
> Anyone with any sense was at least a little afraid of Q. He wasn’t afraid of ruining your career if you got in his way, or teased him about his age, or even switched the coffee machine to decaf (a criminal offense in Q-Branch). Beneath his youthful face and rumpled, if technically fashionable, clothing, he had a heart of steel and no reason for sympathy.
> 
> Q had heard what they said when they thought he wasn’t listening: if you were smart, you stayed away, kept your head down, and minded your own business.
> 
> James Bond was not known for making smart decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for sex

 

Q knew that MI6 accepted him as one of the good guys mostly because the alternative was too frightening to contemplate. He was essential, and no one liked to dwell on the fact that, if he so chose, he could take down the entire British government before taking his tea.

Anyone with any sense was at least a little afraid of Q. He wasn’t afraid of ruining your career if you got in his way, or teased him about his age, or even switched the coffee machine to decaf (a criminal offense in Q-Branch). Beneath his youthful face and rumpled, if technically fashionable, clothing, he had a heart of steel and no reason for sympathy.

Q had heard what they said when they thought he wasn’t listening: if you were smart, you stayed away, kept your head down, and minded your own business.

James Bond was not known for making smart decisions.

“If you don’t have at least half of my equipment back in one piece, 007, you’re going to regret it.”

Bond carefully placed the charred remains of a gun on Q’s desk. “I even went so far as to go back and pick up the little pieces after the fire died down. Technically, all the parts to your gun are right there.”

“Yes, but they’re not in any sort of usable condition. And the radio?”

“It fell into the ocean.”

“You were landlocked.” Q stared Bond down, anger dancing behind his eyes.

Bond simply shrugged.

“Go debrief before I decide to test the new explosives on you. M’s already told me twice that if I kill you, he’ll dock my pay.”

“We wouldn’t be wanting that, now would we?” Bond asked as he stood, smirking slightly.

 

It wasn’t that Bond didn’t know Q was dangerous. It’s that Bond had lived in a world of guns and half-shadows long enough to not even consider working with someone who wasn’t.

“Left, left, left! Take a left you idiot!”

“I can’t take a left, that’s where the people who are trying to shoot me are!” Bond yelled back, diving behind a corner just in time to avoid a rain of gunfire.

“Don’t move!” Bond could hear Q swearing to himself, could visualize him typing away in Q Branch, an intense look on his face as he switched his focus seamlessly from one screen to another.

“Okay, Bond. I need you to get out of the building, preferably in the next twenty eight seconds.” Q’s voice was calm in a way Bond had never heard before.

He ran.

The explosion behind him was perfectly timed, a fireball of glass and splinters that forced Bond to the ground, hands shielding his head. He had no doubt that if he had still been in the building, it would be pieces of him raining down from the sky.

In the centre of Q-Branch, surrounded by screens and minions, Q allowed a smile to break his strict aura of professionalism. “The warehouse is a loss. The agent survived, and the target was terminated. Fourteen known casualties, five civilians. Someone get M a report.”

 

Bond found Q in the shooting range at midnight a week later. He hung back for a moment, watching Q fire at the target paper, and spoke once Q removed the earplugs.

“None of those are kill shots. Who taught you to shoot?”

Q didn’t look surprised to see Bond, and beckoned him closer. “They’re not kill shots. If I’m going to kill someone, I’m not going to shoot them.” There is the slightest trace of scorn in his voice. “If someone gets close enough to me for me to shoot them, I want to know how the hell they did it. You can’t get information with a kill shot.”

“And have you ever had to put this into practice?”

Q shrugged casually and clicked the safety on his gun, setting it carefully within reach before leaning back against the wall. “A few times, before coming to work for MI6. The one that sticks out in my mind was about six years ago. I needed cash, and put out the word that I was accepting job offers. A few days later, an unmarked black car picked me up off the street.”

Q’s eyes were closed, and Bond couldn’t help but feel entranced. There was something glorious about finding the cracks in Q’s armour, on learning what he had done and what he was capable of.

“The man gave me a target, and sent me off to Afghanistan with orders to wound him enough to get him discharged, but to not injure his legs. Whatever his plans were, he wanted the man to be able to run.”

“And?”

Q shrugged, his eyes snapping open. He pressed one finger against Bond’s shoulder, nail digging in slightly through the layers of cloth. “I shot him in the shoulder, the man gave me my money and a piece of tech I had been looking for. End of story.”

“Is there anything you wouldn’t do?”

Q shrugged again, and picked up his gun. “I’ll find out sooner or later, I suppose,” he called over his shoulder as he walked out, raising two fingers in a half-salute behind him.

 

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, so stop telling me what to do.” Bond said, his raised voice causing Q to flinch slightly. It was midnight, and Bond was in Q's living room after a long mission. He should tell him to get out, but Q is not actually sure if Bond has anywhere else to go.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re a Quartermaster. When have you ever had to torture someone?” Bond’s face was like stone as he stared Q down before downing his scotch.

“I haven’t always been a Quartermaster, 007,” Q said, his mind drifting back to their conversation about guns, to how Benjamin would have responded to finding a trained assassin in his flat.

“Did they ever catch you? Before?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see.”

Q stared at Bond for a long moment before striping off his shirt and turning around. He knew his back was a mess, covered in scars from the plane crash and his kidnapping. In the centre of it all was his tattoo, a small attempt to turn the tortured mess into a work of art. It wasn’t something most people got to see, not since he had become too busy with work to pick up strangers at the bar.  

“How?”

“I didn’t need their job. They needed me. When I refused, they decided there were better ways to make me do what they wanted.”

“And did you?”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“How did they get you?”

“I was stupid. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.” Q’s eyes were hard, and he stood and walked into the kitchen, not bothering to replace his shirt. He could feel Bond’s eyes on his back, and he tried to ignore the flushed feeling that was coursing through his body. Anger and sex had always been closely tied together for him, and Bond was doing nothing to help him differentiate the emotions.

He pulled out a bottle of scotch and two glasses before returning to the living room. He passed one to Bond and filled it wordlessly.

“Despite what M says, I still think don’t think there’s anything wrong with what you did.  You retrieved the information we needed.”

“M takes offense at my causing unnecessary pain to other people.” Bond replied in a flat voice.

Q shrugged. “I don’t see why. It’s practically what they’ve trained you to do. It’s not your fault that you’re not some perfect machine that can turn it on and off at their whim.” Q took a sip of his scotch. “You know, despite being freelance for years before coming here, it’s MI6 that has blurred the line between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ for me more than anything else.”

Bond clinked his glass against Q’s. “To dubious morality and the inevitability of time,” he said, his voice low in the darkness, and Q felt a shiver run down his spine.

 

Bond kissed like a punch to the face. He had Q pinned to the wall, holding his wrists tightly enough for Q to feel it but not hard enough to leave marks. Q arched into the touch and crowded into Bond as much as possible. Bond, who was chasing after his mouth and biting against any inch of skin he could reach.

Bond groaned and dropped Q’s hands in order to fist his own into the younger man’s hair, forcing his head up so that he could scrape his teeth along the sleek line of Q’s neck.

Q scraped his nails against Bond’s back in return, grinding into him. “Bedroom,” he said simply, pushing backward against Bond in an attempt to steer him in the correct direction.

Bond growled and acquiesced.

Q stripped quickly and placed his glasses on the bedside table before letting himself fall back to sit on the edge of the bed. Bond crowded against him, flicking his tongue against one of Q’s nipples before moving to lick the dark lines of the tattoo on Q”s shoulder.

“When?” He asked, allowing his mouth to briefly move away from Q’s skin before returning to lick and suck against the freckles at the base of Q’s neck.

Q gasped and tilted his head back. “After jail,” he admitted, gasping again when Bond moved up, tracing the line of freckles until he was sucking on Q’s pulse point.

“And the one on your back?”

“Courage never to submit or yield,” Q quoted, and then whined when Bond pulled away from his skin to give him a quizzical look.

“From Dante’s _Inferno. ‘_ All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.’ In binary, with the wires for the obvious reasons. But I didn’t invite you into my bed to question my tattoos and knowledge of literature.”

“Mouthy, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I'm aware,” Q said tartly, pushing Bond back onto the bed. He knew that he only succeeded because Bond allowed him to, but pushed the thought out of his mind in order to bite at Bond’s collarbone with more force than was probably necessary.

“I guess I could find something else to do with my mouth,” he added, feeling a slight thrill go through him at the slight catch in Bond’s breath as Q slithered down his body, fingers resting on the catch of his trousers.

Bond propped himself up on his elbows, looking down as Q made quick work of his trousers and slid them down to his knees. Q allowed himself a brief moment to nuzzle Bond’s hardening cock through the fabric of his pants before pulling those off as well.

Bond rested his hand on top of Q’s shoulder rather than tangling it in his hair, and Q felt a brief flash of disappointment. He wrapped one hand around Bond’s prick, stroking it twice before meeting Bond’s face with a challenge in his eyes. _Go on, then. You’re not going to break me._

Bond tangled his fingers in Q’s hair and pulled his head down slightly, just enough for Q to feel it. “Well, go on then.”

“Well, I suppose it is my job to give my agents whatever they require to get the job done,” Q drawled, and let his tongue lick at the head of Bond’s cock.

Q drew on the skills gained in years of one night stands and quick fucks in bar bathrooms, doing his best to give Bond all he could. It was only a few minutes before Bond tugged him gently away and pulled Q is up for a kiss.

“I’m going to fuck you,” he said, his voice low.

“Promises, promises,” Q murmured back, allowing Bond to lazily nip at his freckles once more before moving to pull Q’s pants off.

“Turn over,” he said, slapping Q’s thigh lightly, and Q obliged, wiggling his arse at Bond, who appeared to be rooting through Q’s bedside drawer in search of condoms.

Bond hissed sharply when he turned to face Q once more, and Q tensed at the anger in the sound. Bond ignored him, and carefully traced the M-shaped scar on Q’s left buttock.

“Q.” Bond’s voice was low and dangerous, and Q sat up before turning to face him.

“I heard rumours when you joined MI6 that M threatened you into accepting the job,” he said carefully, and Q bit back a burst of hysterical laughter.

“No, not M,” he said. “I got that at the same time I got the scars on my back.” Q looked down at his hands, and missed Bond lunging toward him until his lips were firmly pressed against Q’s and his hands were tugging black hair back.

“Thank God,” Bond muttered, and Q briefly wondered what Q’s response would have been if M had branded him. Bond’s loyalty was to M and to England, and everything else could go hang itself. Q suspected that included him, and shoved the thought back out of his head.

“My time is valuable, 007,” Q said when Bond let him up for air again, “and I believe you have a promise to make good on.”

“That I do,” Bond purred, nipping at Q’s ear before flipping him over again.

Bond fucked like he killed, hard and fast, touching more than necessary. His fingers dug into Q’s hips in a way that Q was sure would leave marks in the morning. In retaliation, Q grinds back against him as much as possible, rolling his hips into Bond in an effort to claim some small bit of him in return.

When they’re done they rolled apart, shifting automatically to different sides of the bed. Q caught Bond slipping a gun under his pillow, and contemplated telling him about the knives in sheathes on the back of the headboard. They are broken men. They do not cuddle, and they do not sleep easy. But together, there is the sense that they could take on whatever came in the night, and Q manages not to curl up in the foetal position when the nightmares inevitably come. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from the e. e. cummings poem "here's to opening and upward."  
> This chapter is dedicated to Jen (astudyinfic) for pointing out that Ben Whitshaw has freckles on his neck, a fact which ten exploded into this sex scene.   
> Is the soldier that Q injures a reference to a certain BBC show? I'll let you decide.


	10. 2013- such strangeness as was mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They tangled together more nights than not, when Bond was home. And apart from the way they broke like waves on each other’s voices when the lights were out, nothing changed. The job would always come first for both of them. Everything else was expendable.
> 
> Their work relationship didn’t change much either. Bond still hung around Q-Branch when he had nowhere else to be. He still asked for tech that Q would refuse to give him, and Q still asked for equipment that Bond would never actually bring back.
> 
> Q led Bond through his missions with the same sarcastic detachment as always, and Bond traded snarky banter, slept with dangerous women, and killed the bad guys. Nothing changed.
> 
> And yet, somehow, everything was different. Bond had practically moved into Q’s apartment. He had stopped seeing other people while he was in town, and Q had stopped even thinking of picking up men in bars. They functioned well together, and that scared Q more than anything.

 

They tangled together more nights than not, when Bond was home. And apart from the way they broke like waves on each other’s voices when the lights were out, nothing changed. The job would always come first for both of them. Everything else was expendable.

Their work relationship didn’t change much either. Bond still hung around Q-Branch when he had nowhere else to be. He still asked for tech that Q would refuse to give him, and Q still asked for equipment that Bond would never actually bring back.

Q led Bond through his missions with the same sarcastic detachment as always, and Bond traded snarky banter, slept with dangerous women, and killed the bad guys. Nothing changed.

And yet, somehow, everything was different. Bond had practically moved into Q’s apartment. He had stopped seeing other people while he was in town, and Q had stopped even thinking of picking up men in bars. They functioned well together, and that scared Q more than anything.

_Going to the store. Need anything? –Q_

_Get food. REAL food, Q. –B_

The notes started casually, a way to communicate that couldn’t be traced. Slowly, they became more, a way to flirt without speaking, without admitting anything that couldn’t be taken back once it was said.

It was just another way for them to dance around each other, but neither of them were willing to admit it.

_Wear the black pants tonight. –B_

_Only if you wear the suit I like. –Q_

_If you suck me off while I’m still wearing it. –B_

_It’s a deal. –Q_

The moments Q spent with Bond blended seamlessly in his mind until he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t walked into his flat at two in the morning to find Bond reading on his sofa or sleeping in his bed, a glass of scotch sitting on the counter.

Bond is a dangerous man. He can be cruel and vindictive. He’s been called heartless, incapable of feelings, a machine. In reality, he’s grown up lost and alone and has no reason to trust, let alone love. He’s been trained to be cruel, to be calculating. He’s not a nice man, but he’s not an evil one either. And somewhere deep down, Q knows that some things haven’t changed since he was at uni. Part of Bond’s appeal is in his danger, in knowing that he’s shagging a man who, given a reason, would not hesitate to kill him.

He liked the idea more than he ought to, but he can’t bring himself to care.

 

Q found Bond sitting in the couch with a bottle of scotch when he got home, the lights still out and the security system on.

Bond didn’t meet Q’s eyes when he entered the room, and Q ignored him to let him sulk.

He was in the shower when he heard Bond moving around the kitchen, and a few minutes later the door slid open and Bond stepped in behind him.

Strong arms wrapped around Q’s stomach, and Q allowed himself to lean back for a moment.

“You’re bleeding,” he said when he turned to face Bond.

“Not my blood,” Bond said in return, reaching around Q to make the water as hot as possible.

Q knew better than to comment on the tone of Bond’s voice. Bond returned home from missions in one of two moods. Sometimes he was angry, and would break things and yell and storm out again, returning in the early hours of the night to fuck Q senseless, hard and fast without saying a word to him. Other times, he was quiet and withdrawn, living in some corner of his mind where things had turned out differently. At times like this, Q couldn’t help but wonder if Bond was just waiting until the mission that managed to kill him and make it stick.

Q wrapped his arms around Bond and didn’t move even when he felt Bond’s muscles stiffen under him. He held him in a way he had never held anyone else, and slowly he felt Bond relax under his touch, though he didn’t return the hug. Q hadn’t expected him to.

“I break everything I touch, Q,” Bond said in a low voice, tipping his head back to rinse the dirt from his face.

Q thought about Adam, about Rogue and Mark and all the lives he had broken, including his own. “You’re not the only one.”

 Bond touched his shoulder briefly, and then stepped out of the shower.

_We’re going to end up destroying each other one of these days. -Q_

_I’ll stop when you do. –B_

Neither of them moves to end it.

They don’t say I love you. As long as they can refrain from that, both Q and Bond can let themselves believe that it’s just convenience, that nothing has changed.

Bond can continue to seduce beautiful women hundreds of miles away, and can throw himself into danger without worrying about what he’s leaving behind.

Q can continue to pretend that there’s still nothing he wouldn’t do if MI6 asked it of him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it. Thank you all for reading! If you want to see what I'm currently writing, you can find me at oldamongdreams.tumblr.com. I've got a few Skyfall-era fics coming up, a sequel to "Gunpowder Grey, Flashes of White" and, of course, I'm working on my 00Q Big Bang fic. 
> 
> Chapter title comes from the e. e. cummings poem "it is moments after I have dreamed." Much thanks to my beta, lemonadesummers11, and to all my cheerleaders. I love you guys.

**Author's Note:**

> The e. e. cummings poem quoted is "Somewhere I have never travelled greatly beyond", and the work title is from his poem "it is at moments after I have dreamed". The idea of Hacker Republic is borrowed from Stieg Larsson's books. Q is named Benjamin because of reasons that have nothing at all to do with his actor's name. Nope.  
> Despite having 85% of this currently written, I am not entirely sure where it is going, so please bear with me. xx


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